Episode 11: Interview with photojournalist Jo-Anne McArthur

This week's episode of Always for Animal Rights features an interview with award-winning photojournalist Jo-Anne McArthur.

 
Through her work documenting humans' relationship with other animals, Jo-Anne, who lives in Toronto, has visited nearly 60 countries around the world and was the subject of a 2013 documentary called The Ghosts in Our Machine. She is the author of two books that feature her photography and writings. This year, she founded We Animals Media, an international media agency dedicated to making the lives and the suffering of non-human animals visible to the public.

In this thought-provoking interview, we covered the following topics:

Grazing at a sanctuary in S. Australia
Credit: Jo-Anne McArthur/We Animals

• Jo-Anne's photography journey and We Animals Media
• how Jo-Anne gains access to animal exploitation facilities to take photos
• the rise of effective altruism and effective activism
• the importance of sanctuaries to the animal rights movement
• how doing an internship at Farm Sanctuary helped her go vegan
• how children have responded to her humane education program
• the impact of her work, and what she hopes to accomplish in the future.

To learn more about We Animals Media, please visit WeAnimalsMedia.org.

If you are an animal rights activist looking for high-quality photos to use for your projects, you can find many of Jo-Anne's photographs at WeAnimalsArchive.org. The photos can be used for free as long as the project is intended to help animals and you cite the source of the image.

An arctic fox imprisoned on a fur farm
Photo credit: Jo-Anne McArthur/The Ghosts in Our Machine

Pigs imprisoned at a Finnish facility
Photo credit: Jo-Anne McArthur/Oikeutta eläimille

Elliot, a rescued sheep, at Freedom Hill Sanctuary in South Australia
Photo credit: Jo-Anne McArthur/We Animals

After our interview is Queen V's song "Wearing My Blood", which is told from the perspective of a non-human animal who is imprisoned on a fur farm. The song is beautiful yet tragic.

I hope you'll take a listen to this episode!

How to listen to this episode


There are two ways to listen to the episode.

1. Listen to the episode on Archive.org or download the MP3 file at https://archive.org/details/afarnovember202019. This version contains the song "Wearing My Blood" in its entirety.
2. Listen to the episode on CKCU FM's website at https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/553/45742.html. In this version, the song "Wearing My Blood" is faded out part-way through.

You can find Always for Animal Rights on Facebook and Instagram, as well!

The next episode of Always for Animal Rights will be broadcast on CKCU 93.1 FM in Ottawa on Wednesday, December 4, 2019-- and, of course, it will be available to listen to afterwards, as well.

Episode 10: Interview with Queen V about her music and activism

We have reached the tenth episode of Always for Animal Rights! I would like to thank AFAR's listeners for your encouragement and moral support so far.

This week's episode of Always for Animal Rights features my recent interview with Queen V, a vegan singer-songwriter based in the UK. Queen V's songs focus on issues related to veganism, animal rights, and the environment. Her music is very powerful.

In our interview, Queen V told me about the inspiration behind her songs, how people have responded to her music so far, and what she hopes to accomplish in the future. As well, we spoke about how she has recently adopted a dog named Zala.

In this episode we'll hear three of Queen V's songs: "What Hell is Like", "What's It Gonna Take", and "Only One Life".

Queen V wrote the song "What Hell is Like" after watching the documentary Land of Hope and Glory, which shows the conditions that non-human animals are subjected to on UK farms. (Land of Hope and Glory can be viewed online for free by clicking here.)

"What's It Gonna Take", which has an environmental focus, is Queen V's most recent release. The music video has a very cool "ghostly" quality to it.

The song "Only One Life" speaks about the injustice of killing animals and the need to respect other sentient beings' right to live and be free.

On the show, we also spoke about Queen V's anti-fur song, called "Wearing My Blood". I mentioned that I would include a link to this song in the show notes, so here it is! I hope to include it on a future episode.

You can find Queen V's other songs on her YouTube channel here. Definitely check it out after you listen to the interview!

How to listen to this episode

There are two ways to listen to the episode.

1. Listen to the episode on Archive.org or download the MP3 file at https://archive.org/details/afarnovember62019.
2. Listen to the episode on CKCU FM's website at https://cod.ckcufm.com/programs/553/45540.html.

You can find Always for Animal Rights on Facebook, as well!

The next episode of Always for Animal Rights will be broadcast on CKCU 93.1 FM in Ottawa on Wednesday, November 20, 2019-- and, of course, it will be available to listen to afterwards, as well.